Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.04.2018, Side 16

Election
Campainful

A serious review of election
campaign videos that are a gem of
modern surrealist cinema
Words: Alice Demurtas
Photos: Stills from Facebook videos
With only a month to go before munici-
pal elections and a plethora of prob-
lems to solve, political parties scramble
to rescue Reykjavík from the clutches
of the bad guys currently in charge.
They claim that yes, they can make all
our problems disappear. And what’s
the best way to lure someone into
the madness of electoral campaigns?
Videos, of course.
Let’s just make it instantly clear that
Icelandic electoral campaign videos are
not there to share knowledge relevant
to their political parties’ platforms.
That’s simply not what this is all about.
Instead, the more bashing, the better;
the more nonsense, the better; the
more slogans, the better.
These videos are not coherent,
funny segments like the glorious 2016
campaign video made by Gerald Daugh-
erty, where his wife begged voters to
get the man out of her sight. However,
precisely because nothing in them
makes sense in the slightest, they are
a gem of modern surrealist cinema
that candidly capture the absurdity of
Icelandic elections.
Who can trust the Vikings?
In Miðflokkurinn’s video, we half
expected Centre Party’s Vigdís Hauks-
dóttir to burst into the frame riding a
majestic black horse, but she ended up
going for a much more quaint appear-
ance. As what is presumably Celtic
music plays loudly in the background,
Vigdís stands fiercely against the back-
drop of an unidentified shore some-
where in Reykjavík.
“We will build Sundabraut,” she says,
referring to the controversial route that
is supposed to cut the gulf between
downtown Reykjavik and Mosfells-
bær in half. “But we can’t always trust
the Vikings to get us across places,”
she adds, as she eagerly steps into a
boat alongside two authentic Vikings,
paddling away to sea.
Even if you understand Icelandic,
the whole video arises a jumble of exis-
tential questions within 35 painfully
cringeworthy seconds. Is this real? Is
life real? What have Vikings got to do
with anything? Does Vigdís do Cross-
fit to be able to work the paddles with
such vigour? Perhaps psychiatrists will
one day be able to answer our dilem-
mas, but for now, we’ll just be content
with watching Vigdís try to awkwardly
paddle back to shore dragged on a rope
by a mighty Viking.
Outrageous seaty elections
As far as nonsense go, however,
nothing beats the video released by
Framsóknarflokkurinn (The Progres-
sive Party) where one of its candidates
Ingvar Már Jónsson gets mad at a stra-
tegically placed bench. For about 30
seconds, Ingvar has been criticising
the fact that a traffic-packed road has
been modified in a way to hinder traffic
instead of reducing it.
But what makes the hair on the back
of his neck suddenly rise with indig-
nation? What outrages him about this
preposterous crossroad where cars
can’t turn left or right unless the lights
are green? A lonely bench that faces the
road. “I have never seen anyone sit on
this bench,” Ingvar exclaims dramati-
cally. “This is just a waste of taxpayers
money!”
You’ve got to hand it to him: it’s not
like people are voluntarily flocking en
masse to Grensársvegur to breathe in as
much CO2 as they can, but what has this
bench done to Ingvar? Was he perhaps
bullied by a mean bench in elementary
school? Or did a bench refuse to be his
date? Put an end to bench-shaming,
man. Leave them benches alone.
Too cool for school
As much as we love poking fun at The
Centre and The Progressive Party,
it’s always cool to see them try. What
matters is to participate after all, and
there is something admirable about
their fearlessness and their willingness
to be out there. Not like Vinstri Grænir
(The Left Greens) or Samfylkingin (The
Social Dems) who are just too cool to
make fools of themselves on video.
Or Viðreisn, The Reform Party,
whose online videos were nothing but
hours and hours of filmed powerpoint
lectures. Another Party who has never
heard of making learning fun is The
Pirate Party, who released a series of
short profile interviews where their
candidates go over their platforms
with astonishing sobriety and coherent
sentences. Boring. Who has ever heard
of such a thing?
Drama queens
The cherry on top, however, has got
to be the series of videos released by
Independence Party candidate Eyþór
Arnalds. Clad in pristine coats and
with his salt and pepper hair carefully
slicked back, Eyþór walks around Reyk-
javík pointing out how dirty its roads
are. Dramatic shots of snow-soaked
streets and banana peels peeking out
of rubbish bins with suspicious preci-
sion are carefully edited to induce fear
and disgust.
“Choose change,” Eyþór concludes.
“Let’s clean up Reykjavík!” Mate, there
are many things wrong with this city,
but cleanliness isn’t one of them. To
make matters worse, for the entirety of
the series nobody has any idea of what
change really means to Eyþór. Perhaps
a change of clothes, as he kindly demon-
strates in his videos? We can only hope
Eyþór did not have a shivering intern
following him around in the snow with
a suitcase full of alternative ties to go
with every scenery. But hey, with that
enviable tie selection to go through,
who could blame him
16 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 06 — 2018
Vigdís Hauksdóttir, pointing
Random vikings, vikinging
Eyþór Arnalds, ignoring the sidewalk
MP Banana Peel, in a trash can
Ingvar Már Jónsson: more pointing
Good use of taxpayer money: bench time